Into The Afternoon
by CallMeKouhai
Summary: A continuation of my first upload, In The Morning. Hetalia families progress through their day. First is the Asia family
1. Chapter 1

Into The Afternoon

Asia family (China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan)

Just a note on names –

I'm using the name Abel Edmund de Vries for Netherlands, nicknamed Ned (or Neder-kun, in the case of Kiku, who enjoys the play on his nickname and nationality) . I had to come up with some sort of name for him.

Roma Vargas is Ancient Rome (Romano Vargas, as Lovi was named Lovino Romano Vargas after his Nonno)

Yao was fighting the urge to check over his shoulder. He could feel Ivan's intense stare pinned on the back of his head – he had been followed after class to his current location of employment, Roma Vargas' restaurant. He was washing dishes, thankfully, and didn't have to go out on the floor to deal with his troublesome acquaintance.

The phone rang at the front desk, quickly followed by an angry shout from their head of waitstaff, sixteen-year-old Lovino Vargas. "Answer the damn phone already, you lazy jerk!"

Abel de Vries, better known as Ned, was the current desk worker. He scribbled something on his notepad, dropping his pen as he reached for the phone. "I got it, Lovi," he muttered, snatching the old telephone from its hook.

"Nonno's Pizzeria, how may I - oh, hey, Kiku."

Yao dropped the plate he was washing. Why was his little brother on the phone? Had something happened? Had he forgotten something, or was someone in trouble?

"Yeah, this is Neder-kun. What's the matter? What happened, Kiku?"

Lovino appeared at Yao's shoulder, brows furrowed. He smacked him with the back of his hand. "You better not have broken that plate. Stop eavesdropping on Ned's conversation and get back to work."

As much as Yao just absolutely loved being bossed around by a kid two years younger than him, he was not in the mood for Lovi Vargas' temper. "It's my little brother, aru, he's on the phone-"

He was cut off by another smack from Lovino. His expression had softened marginally, and he looked almost sympathetic. "Stop eavesdropping on Ned's conversation and find out what's going on with your fratellino."

With a grateful smile, Yao left the dishes, all but running to the phone. Ned looked over at him worriedly, toying with the end of his scarf. "Yes, he's here, do you want to talk to him now?"

Apparently, he received confirmation, because he wordlessly handed the phone to Yao, returning to his work as if the call had never happened. Yao took it gingerly, quickly bringing it to his ear. "Kiku! Is everything alright, aru?"

"Onii-chan." Kiku sighed with relief. "I worried that I would not be able to reach you. It is not serious, I assure you, it looks considerably worse than it actually is. Yong-Soo is unscathed, thankfully."

"What did Yong-Soo do now, aru? What happened, and why are you telling me not to worry about it?"

In the silence that followed, he could picture Kiku cringing, shifting awkwardly in his seat, concerned about how to explain this to his big brother.

"A-ano... He almost got himself killed again... D-don't worry about it, onii-chan, I stopped him! Someone talked him into trying to jump out of a tree by the road in an attempt to rand on the roof of a car, and he near-ry did it, but I got to him on time. I had to knock him out of the tree before he jumped, and he ferr on top of me. I sink I sprained somesing. My foot hurts from randing on it oddry."

Yao could hear Kiku's accent creeping into his speech, distorting it beyond his capability of control. His baby brother was in pain. He was hurting. His other little brother had nearly gotten himself hit by a car. This was not good at all.

"Okay, baobao, gēgē is going to come get you, aru," Yao promised hurriedly. "I'll be right there, and I'll take you home."

"W-what about Yonsū-kun?" Kiku asked, mispronouncing his brother's name, the Japanese pronunciation more comfortable on his tongue. "He has been forbidden to participate in his extracurricurars. And Mei-chan? She wirr need to be driven to dance. Hong-kun is being taken home by Mashū-kun, but he wirr need to be picked up afterwards…"

It took Yao a moment to sort through Kiku's accented speech. He struggled for a bit over Mashū-kun before remembering that he meant Matthew, Arthur Kirkland and Francis Bonnefoy's little boy. "Don't worry about it, baobao. I will take care of it. Kirkland-xiāngchēn owes me for babysitting his boys, I'm sure that he or Bonnefoy-xiāngchēn will be able to drive Hong back home, aru. Yong-Soo can be taken home now, when I get you. As for Mei-Mei, I don't know yet… I can't drive you and Yong-Soo home, and still get her to dance on time."

Yao sighed, raking a hand through his hair. He was holding up the phone and he had no idea what to do.

"Izvinite, I could not help but notice your problem."

At the sound of his voice, Yao nearly jumped out of his skin. It was Ivan, standing at his shoulder, that ever innocent smile spread across his face.

"You need someone to drive your sestra to dance classes, da?" He grinned, pleased with himself, as he played with the long, trailing ends of his scarf.

"Sh-shi," Yao mumbled, not able to meet his eyes. He cupped his hand over the phone speaker as he answered Ivan's question. "Mei has ballet after school and she cannot afford to miss practice, aru."

"Mmm! That is very nice! Dancing is a very nice activity!" he said decisively, nodding. "Yao-Yao is fortunate, da? I leave shortly to pick up my cousins from school. It would be a simply thing to drive your sestra to her ballet class."

"A-alright, then, aru. I guess that would work. Thank you for offering, Braginski-xiāngchēn."

"It is my pleasure, friend Yao."

Yao quickly turned back to the phone. "I'm just about to leave, alright, Kiku? I'll be there soon, aru."

"H-hai, onii-chan."

"I'll see you shortly." He hung up the phone, quickly untying his work apron. He hooked it onto its peg, sending a worried look to Ned and Lovino. "I'm not causing trouble for you, am I?"

Ned shrugged. "We're at a lull. If I can pull Heracles out of the back room, there's an extra set of hands. I can manage."

Lovino grunted as he set a tray down on the counter, jerking a thumb in Ned's direction. "What he said."

Throwing on his coat, Yao spared one last glance at Lovino. "Am I going to get in trouble for skipping my hours, aru?"

"Miele, non mi frega niente di che." Lovino made a flippant gesture as he walked back out to the restaurant floor. "I'm only here because I got suspended for cursing out the damn teacher. I'm not here to work. Go help your fratellino, you damn jerk."

With that, Yao was out the door, keys in hand. He was going to go get Yong-Soo and Kiku.

Translation

Nonno – grandfather

Fratellino- little brother

Onii-chan – big brother

Ano – literally means 'that', a sort of nervous stutter

Baobao – baby

Gēgē – big brother

Kirkland-xiāngchēn – Mister Kirkland

Bonnefoy-xiāngchēn- Mister Bonnefoy

Izvinite – Excuse me

Sestra – sister

Shi – yes

Braginski-xiāngchēn – Mister Braginski

Hai – yes

Miele, non mi frega niente di che. – Honey, I don't care about that (Headcanon that Romano likes to use pet names sarcastically)

I'm not fluent in any of the above languages, so blame the translator, and corrections are appreciated ^J^

Reader-senpai!

So I finally have this done. Yay. It's almost two in the morning, and I have typed Yao's name so much that autocorrect tried to change that 'Yay' into 'Yao'. This was poorly written, and it is probably riddled with errors, but I tried, right?

In the words of the great Romano, "It'll settle itself somehow."

Maybe I'll fix it up later. Probably not, though, because I'm very lazy.

Hopefully this wasn't just a giant heap of trash.

Reviews are to me what pandas and Shinatty-Chan are to Yao-Yao, and by that, I do not mean Russia in disguise. ^J^

~Kouhai


	2. Chapter 2

Into The Afternoon

Nordic Five (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland)

 _Well, really, it's just Norway and Iceland, here._

Lukas sighed, looking out the window with glazed eyes. He was absolutely sick of review work. So he might have missed a day or two last week when Emil had been home, sick. That shouldn't mean that he had to sacrifice his recess to do math booklets.

It was raining lightly, but not enough to warrant an indoor recess. He could hear the other children shouting on the playground. He didn't even like going outside – he would much rather be indoors, if he could help it, thank you – but it would be better than working through his third sheet of word problems, his pencil scratching along the paper at a painstakingly slow rate.

Mondays were just not good days, he decided. Not if they were meant for locking him in child prison.

Lukas acknowledged the fact that he was being slightly melodramatic.

He sighed again, filling out another problem. His supervising teacher had been called away, so he was alone in an unused classroom with only his homework booklets for company. It was tortuous. He understood the concepts, why did he have to keep working through the same problems two dozen times?

A knocking at the window roused him from his lethargy. He blinked, refocusing his eyes. He was surprised to see Emil's little face squashed against the window. Lukas quietly rose from his chair, creeping over to the window, trying not to make noise and alert a teacher to the fact that he was out off his seat.. He cracked it open. "Emeh? Lillebror, what are you doing?"

Emil grinned at him. "Found you! I looked for you all over, storebror, why aren't you out here?"

"Worksheets, Emeh. I missed some things last week, remember? When I stayed home with you."

"Oh."

Emil leaned in against the window, pulling up his hood to protect himself from the rain and wind. "Hong told me that his big brother nearly died again."

"What? What happened?" Lukas asked, tightening his hands into fists. He heard this too often for his liking, and it concerned him that Emil was friends with a little boy whose brother seemed determined to break his own neck.

"He tried to jump onto a car, from the big tree by the road. He would've gone splat," Emil answered, making the accompany hand gesture, "but his big brother stopped him. Kiku knocked Yong-Soo out of the tree before he jumped, so nobody got hit by a car today."

Lukas raked a hand through his hair, chewing on his lip. "I don't know how safe it is for you to keep spending time with these boys, Emeh."

"I'd be really safe!" Emil protested. "They always have older kids around. Like Yao, or their cousin, Lien, they're the oldest, or there's Kiku, he's really 'sponsible, Yao said, which means that he's a good person to look after other people, right, storebror?"

"I guess so." Although they were in the same grade, Lukas and Kiku were in different classes, and therefore did not see much of one another. Lukas didn't know him very well.

"And Kiku was being 'sponsible today, right, with Yong-Soo?"

"It's 'responsible', lillebror. And yes, I'd call that responsible."

"Mmm…" Emil pursed his lips, humming. "Hong said that Kiku got hurt, though. Like, his foot got really red, and sort of round and puffy. And he scraped his knees, too. I heard that there was a lot of blood. It would've hurt a whole lot, wouldn't it have, storebror? He didn't cry, though. Kiku's really brave, like you. He doesn't cry."

Lukas smiled faintly. "Big brothers are brave, because they don't want their little brothers to get scared. Imagine how Yong-Soo would have been acting if Kiku had started crying."

Thinking for a moment, Emil frowned. "He would've been really sorry. He'd have been scared."

"You're going to have quite the story to tell our big brothers, aren't you, Emeh?"

Emil put his fingers flat against the window, letting Lukas place his hand against his palm, on the other side of the glass. "It's better when you're out here to learn the story, too…"

"Which means that I have to finish my work, lillebror. It all has to be done, or I stay in at recess tomorrow, too."

"Alright, Luka." Emil pouted as he withdrew from the window. "You better come outside tomorrow, though."

"I will do my best," Lukas promised. "See you later, Emeh."

"See you, Luka."

His over-large coat flapping behind him, Emil ran off to join the rest of the children on the playground equipment. Reluctantly, Lukas closed the window, settling himself at his desk, and attacking the word problems once more.

He couldn't wait for the day to be over.

Translation

Lillebror – little brother

Storebror – big brother

Reader-senpai!

I am fully aware that this is not my best work, but I was rushing to get it updated tonight. So, yes… hopefully it was not an atrocious piece of trash.

My birthday is on Monday – leave a review as a present? Please? Favorites and follows are also lovely ^J^

Any form of constructive criticism is welcome. Even if you just say that you like/don't like the story, that would be marvelous!

~Kouhai


	3. Chapter 3

Into The Afternoon

FACE family (France, America, Canada, England)

"Mattie! Mattie!"

At the sound of his brother's voice, Matthew looked up. He had his arm wrapped carefully around Kiku, trying to soothe the smaller boy with limited success. His knees were bloody and still bleeding, the red liquid flowing along his pale skin as easily as the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes. His ankle was swollen and red. Matthew didn't like seeing his friend in pain.

Alfred roughly shoved his way into the office, tripping over his own feet. "There you are! I was looking all over for you!"

Matthew braced himself for impact as Alfred flung himself down onto the bench beside them. Kiku let out a tiny gasp of pain as his injured leg was jostled, biting down hard on his lip.

"Hi, Al," Matthew said softly, letting Kiku squeeze his hand tightly. The smaller boy managed to compose himself, but not before two fat tears escaped the cusps of his eyelids. He hurriedly wiped at his face, trying to force a smile despite the fact that his entire body was trembling. He nodded stiffly to Alfred, pretending that he wasn't in pain.

"How're you holding up, Keeks?"

"I am coping." Kiku's face twisted into a slight grimace. "I have caused onii-chan immense inconvenience, however."

"What do you mean?" Matthew asked.

"Yao-nii attends ressons in the morning, and he goes to work for the afternoon. Now he needs to retrieve me, and Yonsū-kun from his detention. Mei-Mei has dance after school, but she needs to be driven, and Yao-nii won't get back in time to do that if he has to bring us home..." Kiku gnawed on his lower lip. "Mashū-kun, you're working on a project with my otouto, hai?"

"Yes, I'm working with Hong, on that interview thing." 'That interview thing' was a project that the younger students were doing, interviewing an older student outside of their family. Matthew had agreed to be interviewed by Kiku's little brother, Hong.

"Yao-nii is going to be busy, with disciprining Yonsū-kun, and he wirr need to attend to my injuries, in addition to discussing his departure with Roma-kun and Roma-Teikoku, so-."

"Roma-who?" Alfred interrupted, blinking his wide blue eyes, perplexed. "Who are these Roma-people?"

"Lovino and his grandfather," Matthew explained. "Roma-Teikoku means Roman Empire, right, Kiku?"

"Hai. He shares the name of a Roman emperor, and emigrated from the city of Rome. He said that I could call him Roma-Teikoku. Romano is his grandson's middle name, and I find it easier to pronounce than Ro –" with visible effort, he corrected himself. "Lovino."

"Well, that's kinda cool!" Alfred grinned.

"As I was trying to say, Mashū-kun," Kiku continued, "Yao-nii is possibry going to be busy for the afternoon. I have to ask, might Bonufowa-san or Kākurāndo-san be abre to bring my otouto home tonight?"

Matthew winced slightly at the bad pronunciation of papa's name, but he knew that Kiku was trying. At least he wasn't like Alfred, who pronounced Bonnefoy like 'bonnie-foy'. Hearing people mispronouncing papa's name, distinctly French as it was, made him think of his papa's disparaging response : 'Zey butcher my language, les maudits anglais,' his accent coming out more strongly in his displeasure. He always smiled when he heard Kiku struggling to pronounce his name, though. He liked Kiku, and appreciated the effort he made.

"One of them should be able to," he said slowly. "I imagine that papa Francis would be more than pleased to drive your brother home. He likes you and your siblings."

Kiku exhaled quietly, relief evident on his face. "Arigatou, Mashū-kun."

"Yeah, I totally forgot about that!" Alfred interjected. "Hong's coming over after school! Will he be bringing more of those cool sparkler thingies that he showed me last time he was over? Those were awesome!"

"I do hope not," Kiku answered quickly, "as he was instructed not to use those without Yao-nii watching him. He is not permitted to use them on his own."

Alfred pouted. "But he brought them last time, and Yao wasn't there! And it was so cool, too!"

Kiku sighed with a resigned air, swiping at his teary eyes. He just wanted Yao to come get him. Matthew could see it in his face, the tightness of his pained expression. He squeezed his friend's small hand reassuringly, gently rubbing Kiku's raw knuckles with his thumb, just like how papa did when Matthew had fallen off his bike last summer and had scraped his palms bloody.

Alfred's mood dropped dramatically in an instant – his lower lip began to wobble slightly as a small tear slid down Kiku's cheek; Kiku's eyes were wet with tears and watering from wiping at his eyes, causing a tear to escape. Alfred grabbed Kiku's other hand, clinging to him. He didn't want his friend to be in pain. He nuzzled Kiku's shoulder, mumbling under his breath, "The Hero will protect you, Keeks. The Hero will make you all better."

Kiku sniffled wetly, his fingertips quivering as he slowly curled his fingers around their hands in a shy display of affection.

Unbeknownst to the three boys, Francis stood outside the office door, looking in with a soft smile. He worked at a restaurant that happened to cater to the school's hot lunch program, which was offered in place of a cafeteria. He'd just finished his rounds. Francis didn't often take the delivery, but they were short-staffed, and he enjoyed seeing the schoolchildren.

He smiled at his boys, waving to his petit Matthieu, before moving to leave. He held the door open for Yao as the teenager rushed in, a flurry of long, waving jacket sleeves and rapid Mandarin.

Kiku smiled tiredly, reaching out to his ge ge. Yao was quick to pull him in close, cradling his little brother like he was a fragile little doll. He buried his face in Kiku's silky black hair.

"Ju Hua," he whispered, pressing a kiss to Kiku's forehead.

Normally, Kiku would have wrinkled his nose in displeasure, but he simply leaned into Yao and mumbled responses to him in quiet Mandarin, the Chinese language unfamiliar on his lips.

Matthew slid over on the bench, closer to Alfred. They were going to have to stay in the office until the bell went, so they might as well sit together. They watched as Yao picked up Kiku, carrying him out of the office while being careful not to jostle his injured legs. The smaller boy waved goodbye to them as Yao carried him out, on their way to pick up Yong-Soo from his detention.

Alfred sighed. "I hope he heals up soon, Mattie. Kiku is too little for that much hurt."

"He's our age, Al. He's not that little."

"But Keeks is tiny! He's so little!" Alfred made several gestures to get his point across. "He's just a lot smaller than us, Mattie, so, since I'm the Hero and you're my totally cool brother, so we've gotta take care of him!"

Matthew rolled his eyes. "Of course, Al." More seriously, he added, "We'll both watch out for him. C'est un promis."

Translation

Onii-chan – big brother

Otouto – little brother

Hai – yes

Maudits anglais – damn English

Arigatou – thank you

Ge ge – big brother

Ju Hua – Chrysanthemum, the Chinese equivalent of the name Kiku

C'est un promis – it's a promise

Well, these are almost all words I've used before. Do correct me if I'm wrong. ^J^

Reader-senpai!

I am, in fact, still alive, not that anyone here cares. Here's my latest update, it's kind of really bad. And I'm sorry to anyone who happened to be following this story, but my life has been a little hectic. I'm working three extracurriculars, school projects, personal issues, and social drama, and I haven't been around much to write enough consistently. My choice of invalid excuses tonight is the textual fight I'm having with my friend. He did something stupid, and I got mad at him, now he's mad at me for being mad at him. Then there's the whole thing about how he's the only one I've confided in (keep my secret, internet-senpai, I'm genderfluid and pansexual, out as pan at school but entirely closeted at home), and the stupid thing he did was disrespectful to me, but you don't want my drama.

Sorry once more. Hope you enjoyed this fluffy trash piece between the North American brothers and my baby Japan.

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ ✧ﾟ･: *ヽ(◕ヮ◕ヽ)

~Kouhai


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